Gaikai full-game streaming to start 3 months after launching on Facebook

Gaikai is set to launch full-game streaming services on its network of gaming and entertainment websites, ramping up its current demo-only model, GamesIndustry reports. After launching its cloud service on Facebook, Gaikai will roll out full-game streaming on retailer sites such as YouTube, Best Buy and Walmart, and on publisher sites such as EA and Ubisoft.

Full-game streaming will go live about 90 days after the Facebook service begins, which should be soon, Gaikai head Dave Perry says. Gaikai's main competition is OnLive, but Perry says there is a huge difference between the two companies. "They have to modify the game; they have to get the source code to the game," Perry said. "Gaikai doesn't require modification of the game."

There are no direct plans to put Gaikai on console, but Perry can see the need for cloud services on all platforms: "You do not want to be the console that can't do this," he said. "You do not want to be the retail website that doesn't have playable games on it. You don't want to be the gaming website that you can't buy a game from.

"I don't want to take your console from your cold dead hands, that's not the case at all. You're going to continue to play the way you play, but just imagine that you could have an opinion on all games because you've been able to try all of them."

Reader Comments (8)

His comments strike me more as desperation by Gaikai than any kind of true vision. Days ago a Gaikai executive was claiming that either Sony or Microsoft will cancel their next gen hardware. Now Perry is claiming consoles can't live without them.

"You do not want to be the WHATEVER that can't do this"

I'd bet dollars to donuts that the Wii won't do it, just based on Nintendo's general philosophy. I'd be highly surprised to see Microsoft outsource full game streaming, they seem more likely to purchase or build something. As for Sony, they are showing more interest in outside partners (see Steam), but they are also working on their own streaming technology (PS3 to Vita). They may prefer to invest in their own tech as well.

I don't want to buy or demo games on Joystiq, I come here to read about games, not play them.

Gamestop is supposed to be launching its streaming service sometime this year (assuming all goes well, of course). Given Amazon's history of building their own technology I doubt they would outsource another potential source of revenue. They already stream movies, and they own their own tablet platform.

Not that Gaikai may not have a place, but it's starting to look like an awfully crowded market with fewer opportunities to gain clients or partners than it did a couple of years ago when Gaikai was announced.

@Courtney So you are saying if joystiq for instance reveiws a game and then alows you to play it right there without leaving the article so you could form you're own opinion would be a bad thing.

@Courtney It might be early, but this is how it'll be in the future, in one way or another. Having expensive local hardware that gets quickly outdated is a very inefficient and cost-expensive way to handle this.
Music has already moved into the cloud, movies pretty much there as well and games will soon follow. In the future, we'll all laugh on how silly it was with all these devices, discs and all other junk we had in our homes.

Not saying this will happen next year, or even the year after that, but this will happen.

I checked it out and I was able to play several games BUT for only 30 minutes each and then I had to purchase it if I wanted to keep playing. Definitely worth FREE and it played smoothly on my aging PC. If you are traveling and have a laptop/tablet/netbook etc it might be worth being able to play in your browser on any Java enabled device with a decent internet connection.

Sounds like a man desperate scrounging on the scraps of past victories.
He made Earthworm Jim and that's it.

I tried out The Witcher 2 on it and said, "WOW, this is a streaming service?" There were no graphical artifacts or anything. Much better than OnLive - for me, anyway. There was a little bit of sound stuttering when talking to a certain NPC but nothing huge. I love it.

> retailer sites such as YouTube

What?

Gaikai full-game streaming to start 3 months after launching on Facebook

Reader Comments (8)

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 1:38AM Courtney said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 9:47AM 880Cloud088 said

Posted: Feb 10th 2012 4:50AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 2:16AM DGAF666 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 2:39AM ecco6t9 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 7:30AM KGameLover1 said

Posted: Jan 24th 2012 10:29AM ColorblindMonk said

Posted: Jan 25th 2012 9:59PM richtaur said

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